Showing posts with label wearable art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wearable art. Show all posts

27 July 2012

Incredible use of teacups, etc.

I first saw this artists work quite a while back. I fell in love with it and found it purely awe inspiring. I'm sure some of you have seen images of the work already.

The name of the artist is Li Xiaofeng. I've pasted images below of his work along with a statement about his work. I have also included the link to a website that has a really great interview with the artist.

Who knew what could be achieve with broken teacups and plates...




Li Xiaofeng trained as a muralist but  turned to sculpture to explore a new concept and expression of Chinese landscapes. His choice of material is unexpected; instead of marble, wood or even glass, he  prefers buying shards of broken porcelain recovered from ancient archeological digs, some dating from the Ming Dynasty, and then shaping and polishing them, drilling holes into each corner and linking them together with silver wire to create ’rearranged landscapes’. It is fitting that these poetic pieces, which have been perhaps best described as ‘post-orientalism’, usually take the form of clothing, including traditional Chinese dresses and jackets as well as neckties and military uniforms. They are ultimately ‘wearable’ although certainly promise to be as heavy as any armour and would require a strong retinue of dressers to don and doff.












24 March 2012

Too many ideas, never enough time

I've got too many ideas lately about different types of work I want to make. I'm still producing work for the group SAlt and this will continue all year. I had then also initially planned on working on a suite of work for a solo exhibition. Once again however I've been distracted.My current distraction is wearable art. This has been a long time distraction of mine, the trouble is I already have two unfinished garments.

I want to enter a competition (not interested in winning, would just like to get accepted) that would require quite a bit of work. Its not the WOW competition in New Zealand as I don't quite think I'm up to that standard yet. Thats not to say I haven't been planning future ideas for that one as well.

So plans for the moment are


  1. -keeping up with new job
  2. -wearable art competition (not WOW one)
  3. -thinking about WOW wearable art competition
  4. -work for SAlt exhibition group
  5. -work for several other competitions
  6. -work for my own solo exhibitions
  7. -writing magazine articles
At this stage I think I'm going to settle on number 1, 2, 4 and possibly 7. 

Never enough time in the day. Ahhhh....  

27 September 2011

Southern Textiles Conference- Carol Wilkes

Carol Wilkes from Queensland is one of the tutors at the Southern Textiles Conference. She works in a range of areas including wearable art and wall based textiles pieces. She is a fantastic teacher (I did one of her workshops a few years ago) and manages to pack so much information into a short period of time. She shares all her trade secrets and so wiling to help students in anyway possible. Gorgeous person.

Below are examples of her work, these ones are mainly comprised of machine made cording.










26 September 2011

Southern Textiles Conference

From the 4th to 7th of October, I am helping Suzanne Gummow to run a Southern Textiles conference. The week consists of workshops with a range of tutors as well as nightly artist talks. The tutors include Kirry Toose from NSW, Carol Wilkes from QLD, Joy Harvey from SA, Jackie Abrams from USA and Effie Mitrofanis from NSW. I will be participating in Jackie Abrams workshop and will post photos when the week actually starts.

Below are photos of work made by the fantastic Kirry Toose. She is the most beautiful and creative textile artist. She primarily works in the wearable art area. Her work is exquisite, every little detail is considered and the finishing is of the highest quality. Kirry has won lots of competitions and awards with her work, this is a tribute to how talented she is.



Tilly the tight rope walker



Wild Rose



Dust to Dust

Kirry doesn't have a website but there are lots of bits and pieces on the internet about her and her work. 

08 September 2011

My work published in Cloth Paper Scissors!!!

My wearable art piece made from used rubber gloves has finally been published in the latest issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. I've had my work published before, but not in a Magazine that is sold worldwide. I now just need to get organised and start writing articles for Magazines (assuming they would get published that is).





My work is at the top of the page- the rubber glove dress. 






The front cover of the issue that my work is in. September/October 2011 Issue



Thanks Cloth Paper Scissors for allowing people to see my dress. It makes all the hard work worth it.





26 November 2010

Next wearable art competition

Right the next wearable art competition theme is 'Art Nouveau'. Apparently i inadvertently suggested it as a theme. It wasn't what i meant at all but oh well.

I've decided to make a corset and several other garments. the corset will have every panel with a different art nouveau artist on it. So far I have Klimt, Renni Mackintosh, Gaudi, tiffany lamp comany, Audrey Beardsley, alfonso mucha,. I haven't actually made the panels yet though, i'm just working out the designs for them.

Below are 2 panels i'm working on. the one on the left is a mosaic design based on antonio gaudi's work. On the right is simply a drawing based on an art nouveau art work which will be made
 into a panel.

07 November 2010

South Australian Quilt Show and Art and Craft Fair 2010

I had a great day on Friday at the South Australian Quilt Show and Art and Craft Fair. I spent the day viewing the entries with my colleagues Cathy Boniciolli and Suzanne Gumow.


I entered the wearable art section with my 'loved gloves' dress, the theme was recycled. It nearly killed me making the dress with all the gloves. I found that I couldn't sew them with the sewing machine as the gloves stretched with the needle and were pulled under the bobbin of the machine. Therefore I had to hand stitch on every single glove as well as hand sew the patchwork bodice piece. I would still like to like to make a bolero to go with it but I can't see that happening anytime soon.


I got a second prize for my dress.



This was Cathy's entry in the quilt section.



This was Suzanne's entry in the quilt section.

04 November 2010

My plan for this blog

I plan with this blog to try and post a minimum of once a fortnight. I have updated my flickr album so that you can see some of my artwork, and i'm currently in the process of adding more.

Here is a photo of one of my most recent pieces of work. The dress is made of used rubber gloves and was designed for a wearable art competition. All gloves are hand stitched onto a fabric base and the bodice patchwork is also hand pieced.

13 October 2010

Corset revisisted


I made this corset Easter of 2007 at a TAFTA workshop in Horsham, Victoria. The workshop was led by Kirry Toose, a fantastic textiles artist. I made the corset below during the week at the workshop. The corset is inspired by the bark of different trees. Close-up photos show how the panels represent various types of bark. I've decided since the workshop that i don't like the plain panels in the corset. I've started unpicking all the panels and plan to replace the blank ones. Going to a be a very long process.